PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Exodus 20:1-17                                                                                 DECALOGUE

Sermon March 15, 2009:  People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

            This is now the Third Sunday in Lent, and the Lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures today is the Ten Commandments—the "Decalogue."  It's traditional in Western Christianity to call our attention to the Ten Commandments during the Lenten Season—it's something we can use to test our lives and examine our deeds under heaven, in this process of self-correction as we prepare for the forgiveness of our sins on Calvary. 

            Now we're adults.  We've grown past those childish stages of moral development when we need somebody else to make the rules for our lives.  We've soaked up the meanings of these ten commandments and made them part of ourselves—mostly.  We may assume that everybody else has done the same thing, so when somebody does a lot of damage by violating these standards, it surprises us—maybe it shocks us, depending on how blatant the offence is.  Bernard Madoff is in the news right now for achieving something beyond our comprehension—he has stolen the investment money of denominations, service organizations like the Eli Wiesel Institute, companies, and tens of thousands of families—more money than anybody has ever stolen before in the history of the world.  It's hard to believe that anybody would harm so many people and just keep doing it.  Has he no conscience?  Well, the psychologists tell us that you have to build your conscience by taking your parents' teaching seriously, and by responsible moral growth as you move toward adulthood; and some people are—shall we say—"morally challenged." 

            I have served as the chairman of Ministry Committees in Virginia and here in the Chesapeake Association—about five or six years chairing the committees that grant or terminate the good standing of ministers.  The process is supposed to protect the local churches, and it usually does; but sometimes a person without a conscience slips through, and when that happens the committee has to sit as a kind of jury in review of the behavior and determine if the minister just needs counseling or if their offence is so great that they should not be permitted to go to another one of our churches.  I've worked on maybe ten cases like this, and almost every one of them was a surprise—the one that wasn't, the minister was innocent, he was just foolish. 

            So even though we're adults and no longer need someone to tell us what to do and what not to do with our thoughts, our bodies and our relationships, we need to go back and touch again the gold standard of faith and morals:  the Ten Commandments. 

 

            The first four commandments are about our relationship to God:  "You shall have no other gods before me," "you shall not make an idol to worship," "you shall not swear in God's name to a lie," and "keep the worship day sacred."  The importance of these boundaries is visible in the Gospel Lesson today—Jesus' cleansing the temple.  For any one of us, faith can become routine, become just what we do when we get together on Sunday, so that the depth of our dependence on God alone is lost:  I grow shallow and superficial.  I know the words and the melody, but my heart stays in bed on Sunday mornings.  For the Hebrews religion was centered in sacrifices.  When Jesus got to the outer court of the temple he saw a hundred salesmen selling animals for sacrifices, and investors had set up tables to change secular money with the pictures of Caesar and the Roman gods on them into temple shekels which wouldn't violate the second commandment.  This market was very useful for Jews who lived in far away places—they didn't have to bring sacrificial animals from Rome or Alexandria:  they just bought them here.  How convenient.  How impersonal not to raise an animal in your own house for two years, get to know it, let your children play with it, test it's strength in the fields; and then offer it as something from your heart to God.[1]  Jesus told the woman at the well, "God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth."  So he drove the market people out of the temple courtyard.  That's how important it is for you to keep your flame of faith burning.  Consider how well you've done that, and talk to God about it. 

 

            The first four of the Ten Commandments are about our relationship to God; the last six are about our relationship to each other.  "Honor your parents," "Do not murder," "Do not commit adultery," "Do not steal," "Do not lie about your neighbor," "Do not entertain lust or greed."  Except for "honoring parents" all these commandments are given in the negative:  "You shall not…."  Martin Luther turned all these negatives around and taught the children in confirmation class to think about what to do in each case instead of what's forbidden.  How much good can you do in this world?  What's the opposite of "You shall not commit adultery?  This is how Luther's students learned to answer:[2]

In his explanation for adults, the "Large Catechism," Luther said:[3]

It doesn't matter whether people in novels and movies behave this way.  It doesn't matter whether your supervisor or your accountant behaves this way or not.  You have a gold standard that you have claimed since you were young—you have something valuable to live up to. 

            In our culture everybody agrees that murder is wrong, but not everybody agrees that sexual infidelity, or stealing, or starting false rumors, or leering are evil.  Shall we rebuild the moral universe on the basis of the standards we agree about?  In our time there has been a lot of study given to the question:  What constitutes sexual harassment?  Not everybody agrees.  Is "harassment" what the doer thinks it is, or what the victim feels it is?  "Harassment" is when someone feels harassed, so there is a right answer:  it's what the victim feels. 

            "Do not steal."  He stole $32,000 from his own church.  They had elected him as church treasurer, and he just used both the checking account and the savings account for his own purposes.  I was flabbergasted.  I didn't believe any adult in a moderately liberal Protestant church would do something so obviously wrong.  That's why I come back to the Ten Commandments and preach on them:  somebody may need to be reminded. 

 

            Now I have a question.  Is Christian ethics about obeying rules that the Bible says God gave?  Or is Christian ethics about becoming a certain kind of person with integrity, virtue and the courage of your convictions?  Is morality about what you do, or is it about who you are?  Paul wrote:

We have friends, family members, fellow Christians, fellow citizens who are far advanced morally, and others who still need to be told, and still others who are somewhere in the middle.  For the young there are rules.  For the fully mature the issue is character.  For most of us it's a little of both.  Wherever you are on this continuum, this line from one side to the other—wherever you are, consider how well you're doing on the basis of where you are with God right now; and talk to God about it, always remembering that because of Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven.  That would be a Lent worth keeping.

AMEN